In a highly anticipated decision during the Bettez family's civil trial against the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) for linking Jonathan Bettez to the disappearance of Cédrika Provencher, Judge Gregory Moore ruled that the court will gradually identify the elements File subject to a publication ban.
According to the judge who heard the parties' arguments on Monday, Quebec's attorney general has not shown that the public nature of the proceedings poses a serious threat to the public interest.
Given the needs associated with the publication of sensitive information related to the investigation, the judge decided to proceed gradually, i.e. not to take place completely behind closed doors.
Any objection to the publication of this information raised by the Attorney General during the trial must therefore be discussed between the lawyers and the judge, who will ultimately decide what will and will not be the subject of a closed session.
Martin Prud'homme is questioned
The former director general of the Sûreté du Québec, Martin Prud'homme, will also be questioned in a preliminary interrogation as part of the trial. This means that he will be questioned by the lawyers and that his statement will be added to the evidence. However, it is not certain whether he will be called to the witness stand during the trial.
Mr. Prud'homme was an investigator in the disappearance of Cédrika Provencher in 2007. He was also general director of the SQ in 2015 when the little girl's death was confirmed following the discovery of her bones in a wooded area in Saint-Maurice.
As part of this lawsuit, the Bettez family is seeking $10 million from the SQ because they say they ruined their reputation by linking Jonathan Bettez to the murder of Cédrika Provencher for years.
The focus of the trial is the publication of the contents of the police investigation file into the disappearance of Cédrika Provencher.
While the SQ categorically refused to release the evidence because no suspect had yet been arrested and convicted, the family felt it was essential to exonerate Jonathan Bettez once and for all.
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The Bettez family's lawyer, Me Jessy Héroux, criticizes the Sûreté du Québec for knowingly ignoring evidence that exonerates his client. (archive photo)
Photo: Radio-Canada / Ivanoh Demers
These are documents that are important for us because they will allow us to establish that there is no concrete evidence that would allow us to link Jonathan to the disappearance of Cédrika Provencher, explained the lawyer on Monday. the Bettez family, Me Jessy Héroux.
According to the lawyer, these documents demonstrate that the SQ knowingly ignored elements that could exonerate Joanathan Bettez, as well as the relentlessness of investigators towards their alleged suspect and his family.
Although he is still considered by the SQ as the main suspect in the disappearance of Cédrika Provencher, Jonathan Bettez has never been accused of anything in connection with the then nine-year-old child's highly publicized disappearance.
The little girl disappeared on July 31, 2007 in Trois-Rivières. All that was found was his bicycle, which was leaning against a fire hydrant. The child's remains were found in December 2015 in a wooded area along Highway 40 in Saint-Maurice.
Investigators have been searching for the person who kidnapped and killed Cédrika Provencher for more than 16 years.
According to the SQ, Jonathan Bettez, who at the time was driving a car similar to the one described by witnesses near the scene of the disappearance, did not want to cooperate with investigators, in particular refusing to submit to the lie detector test. According to police, he was also in Trois-Rivières at the time of the events. Police claim they never received the evidence to exclude Jonathan Bettez from the suspect list.
In this civil lawsuit filed four years ago, Jonathan Bettez and his parents, who are seeking $10 million, seek to prove that investigators made a mistake and made Jonathan Bettez a convenient suspect. The family accuses them of doing everything they could to make people believe that Jonathan Bettez was a pedophile and murderer.
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Jonathan Bettez, notably accompanied by his mother, is suing the Sûreté du Québec and the Quebec Attorney General for $10 million.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Ivanoh Demers
The other aspect disputed by the Bettez family concerned requests from Sûreté du Québec's lawyers not to make the trial fully public.
“We demand closed doors, we demand separate procedures, we demand publication bans,” underlined Me Héroux on Monday, who, like his customers, demands that everything be public so that the public can form its own opinion. idea.
Jonathan Bettez is expected to testify at the trial.
The Attorney General and the Sûreté du Québec refused to publish the information and evidence collected during the investigation, stating that the perpetrator of the kidnapping and murder is still at large and that the publication of this sensitive information could benefit him. Since Jonathan Bettez had not yet been removed from the suspect list, the police did not want to give him this advantage.
Jonathan Bettez, who was never charged in connection with Cédrika Provencher's disappearance, was arrested by the SQ to face charges of possession and distribution of child pornography in August 2016, on the same day that the young girl would have turned 19 . He was subsequently acquitted of all ten charges against him.
The police team also conducted searches at Emballages Bettez, his parents' business.
In October 2018, Judge Jacques Lacoursière sharply criticized the work of the SQ investigators in this case. He described their actions as a fishing operation. In his opinion, the police's actions were abusive and the arrest warrants were invalid, he concluded.